Specialized gloves for athletes have been designed to enhance their performance in certain events as well as to provide a degree of comfort and safety in connection with their athletic endeavors. For example, golfers having long used a variety of gloves for enhancing the gripping of golf clubs; baseball players recently adopted special baseball gloves for enhancing their gripping of baseball bats; bowlers have had gloves for use in connection with bowling heavy balls; archers have utilized gloves to enhance the gripping of bows and arrows; basketball players have had bulky "training gloves"; and bicyclists have utilized gloves to shock absorbtion during the gripping of handlebars.
Representative of the state of the athletic glove art are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,881,276 of Swan; 4,738,447 of Brown; 4,589,146 of Taylor; 3,707,730 of Slider; 3,649,967 of Millman; 3,597,765 of Stanton; 3,404,409 of Tillorson, 2,928,102 of Canausa; 2,751,598 of Romeo; 2,702,906 of Causse; 2,465,136 of Triccoli; 2,092,318 of Lindfelt and 1,954,262 of Potter; together with German Federal Republic Pat. Nos. 24 30 092 and 27 21 409. Other non-athletic gloves include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,224,692 of Sundberg and U.S. Pat. No. Re. 22,167 of Wells, as well as German Democratic Republic Patent Number 148604.
Moreover, it is known that it is preferable that a basketball be in contact with certain site-specific portions of the hand. 0n page 36 of Basketball Skills and Drills, by Jerry Kramer, Leisure Press, Copyright 1991, it is taught that the basketball should touch the insides of the fingers from the tips to the palm, as well as the raised portions of the palm below the fingers and below the thumb. Hoops , by Giorgio Gandolfi and Gerald Secor Couzen, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1987, also teaches at page 93 that the fingers and the raised portions of the palm should touch the basketball. Moreover, it is also taught in Norm Stewart, Basketball Building the Complete Program, Walworth Publishing Co., 1980 at page 33 that the fingers control the basketball, but the top part of the hand can touch the basketball.
Furthermore, it is known that the finger tips and thumb need to be exposed to the surface of the basketball to maximize tactile feel when shooting, throwing, passing or catching the ball. When catching the ball, the sweat on the skin of the palm of the hand causes the thrown or rebounded basketball to continue to rotate upon touching the hand and to tend to compress and reverse direction away from the hand of the person catching or rebounding the basketball.
Therefore, there is a longfelt need in the sport of basketball to provide a glove which exposes the essential fingertips and upper knuckle portions of the fingers and thumb, while providing a rotation and bounce resistant surface on the remaining portions of the hand which should contact the basketball, namely, the upper portions of the palm, and the portions of the palm below the thumb and extending down the side of the palm below the pinky little finger.
The prior art patents do not address this longfelt need. For example, Potter '262 and German patent no. 24 30 092 each have an angled bottom which teaches away from the present invention by exposing the portions of the palm below the thumb. Brown '447 has a heavy weight on the back of the glove.
Lindfelt '318 and Troccoli '136 restrict the wrist and Troccoli '136 also exposes the palm below the thumb. Causse '906, Stanton '765, Sundberg '692, Taylor '146, Swan '276, Wells '167, Tillorson '409, Canausa '102 and German patent no. 27 21 409 completely cover the fingertips. German patent no. 148604 is a bandage with an insulating foam to protect the palm from machine vibrations.
Moreover, Romeo '598 contains restraining strips which artificially restrain the movement of the thumb and last two fingers. Millman '967 restricts the wrist with fastener portions, and covers most of the thumb.
Therefore none of the prior art gloves strategically expose the upper portions of the fingers and thumb, while covering the palm portions below the fingers at the top of the palm, as well as the portions of the palm below the thumb and pinky little finger, with a material having rounded protrusions which interact with corresponding rounded protrusions on the cover of a basketball, to resist or arrest the rotation and reversal of direction of a basketball when it contacts a hand.
Heretofore, there have been no specialized constructions of gloves to aid basketball players in actual game or practice conditions in their game in connection with shooting and handling a basketball. It is to a new and improved athletic glove, specially designed for basketball players for use in actual practice and game competition that the present invention is directed. Specifically, the preferred embodiment of the glove comprises an abbreviated substantially "thumbless" and "tipless" four-finger glove body which slips over the palm and fingers of the user, leaving the thumb, the tips and knuckles of each of the four fingers exposed. The preferred embodiment is essentially a "palm glove" and is wristless and essentially fingerless except for a minor thumb portion and for a minor portion of the four fingers below the knuckles.
More specifically, the new glove is made from an ultra lightweight stretchable, moisture-absorbing elastic material, most advantageously ("Lycra") spandex which conforms faithfully to the anatomy of the hand of the user and further includes a pattern of miniaturized rubber-like (PVC) friction dots (hemispheres) or protruding cones disposed over the entire palm of the glove to provide a ball gripping and ball controlling surface.
These protruding portions resist or arrest the rotation and reversal of direction of the basketball upon contacting a hand, dampening impact of the ball. The protrusions absorb energy of impact, and they mesh with corresponding protrusions on the surface of a basketball. As a result the ball does not jump out of the user's hands.
In accordance with the principles of the invention the new glove provides concentrated support to the central hand and palm portions while greatly enhancing gripping, controlling, and shooting abilities for a basketball being handled by the wearer of the glove. The new glove provides an extraordinary gripping surface to the wearer of the glove (it being understood that some players may opt to wear only a single glove if they shoot and pass predominantly with one hand although the benefits of the glove are derived more fully when both hands are covered by the gripping surfaces provided by the new glove).
The exposure of substantially the entire thumb, the four fingertips and the knuckles of the four fingers, in combination with the rubberized gripping elements provides the wearer with extraordinary shooting and passing "feel ", while the ultra lightweight and skin-tight fit effectively eliminates the sensation of being encumbered by a glove.
For a better appreciation of the structure and functioning of the basketball glove of the present invention and for a better appreciation of other of the attendant advantages of the invention, reference should be made to the following drawings taken in conjunction with the accompanying detailed description of the invention.